New Year's resolution: put more crap on my desk

It's been a good year, so far as years go. Here's wishing you a happy, healthy and Ryan Seacrest-free new one. See you in January.

Permalink: 12:19 PM | Comments (3)

Cheating v. 2.1

On Craigslist’s Boston page today, there’s a post from a girl who recently discovered that she had been suckered into an online relationship with a guy who has a serious girlfriend. Oh, and it gets worse: The guy and his girlfriend have been dating for more than five years and were looking for rings together, and yet she says he “has not only sent me naked/sassy pictures of himself I have watched him get off on his webcam AND we talk on the PHONE. We have talked EVERYDAY for about 2 months now.” She confronted him about this, and he vanished. So, she told the girlfriend everything. Good for her, I say. (And I wrote her to say so.)

I did something similar a while ago. Or, well, not that similar. But anyway. It started when I found a blog that was solely about a guy’s efforts to cheat on his girlfriend. The writing was pretty wild: He’d detail how he lied to her, where he went with other girls and how much he enjoyed it. The whole thing was sort of sickening. Cheating is lousy and all, but I understand that everyone needs to make their own decisions. But bragging about it to the world? Now that’s unforgivable.

So, I did what anyone with a conscience and some Internet savvy would do: I compiled all the personal and geographical details he gave on the blog, figured out who he was and what college he went to, and then anonymously e-mailed the blog address to a bunch of random people at his school. I figured word would get around, and someone would finally pass the site along to the unnamed girlfriend. The blog disappeared pretty quickly. I hope he got what he deserved.

Permalink: 02:51 PM | Comments (6)

Faking it with strangers

My friend Sara, who is a retail planner (and who inspired this post in June), has some interesting thoughts about the disconnect between a company and its employee. When retail began, she says, it was filled with people selling their own wares and therefore genuinely excited about their product. Now, though, the employee has no connection to the product he or she is selling. Consequently, she writes:

Retail can be "immersive" in the sense that the store immerses the customer. Stores surround customers with their version of the world, and employees are left to simply play along.

I think retail goes one step further in the wrong direction: Not only does it require its employees to play along, but in the pursuit of that "immersive" experience, some companies demand that employees act enthused in extremely phony and awkward ways. And it's not just pieces of flair in "Office Space." At a Mexican-style restaurant chain called Moe's, for example, employees are expected to all croon "Welcome to Moe's!" when customers come in. But whenever we go, all the employees mumble it as if they've said it for the 300th time that day -- and they probably have, the poor bastards. Elsewhere, at Coldstone Creamery, employees were (are?) required to sing a song whenever a customer tips.

This sort of thing fails on two levels: First, it's obvious the employees aren't genuinely excited, and nor should they be. The people at Moe’s are burrito makers, not actors. And two, this sort of faux excitement makes the customer uncomfortable. Nobody's being fooled into thinking the cashier at Moe's is somehow so invested in the company that he really wants to welcome people this way. Instead, the gimmick makes me feel like, as a customer, I’m imposing something upon the employee. Sure, I didn’t tell them they had to chant “Welcome to Moe’s,” but they wouldn’t have said it at a particular moment if I didn’t just walk in. I’m an incidental taskmaster, and I don’t like it.

Sara’s suggests that retailers should go out of their way to hire people who connect with the product, and where possible, that makes a lot of sense to me. But if they can’t find staff that loves the company, they should also understand the limitations of their employees. What sounds great in a corporate meeting -- no doubt, things that fall under the mantra of “customer experience” -- doesn’t always translate in the actual retail environment. Customers and employees both understand their relationship, and there’s no use altering it by force.

Permalink: 09:45 AM | Comments (2)

Faith No More asks, Syria investigates

That's a shrunken screencap of my website tracker from yesterday, detailing one Syrian visitor. Curiously, the person's Internet connection is through something called the Department of It Knowledge. What could such a department be responsible for? Investigating what It is? ("Gather 'round, boys, because marginalizing women is the it thing for 2006! And go ga-ga for Bashar, because Democracy is once again out, out, out!") Perhaps they're really excited by eBay's new ad campaign? It's unclear: Google and LexisNexis searches showed nothing, so it was time to expand the investigation.

With Skype, calls to Syria cost 37 cents a minute and knowledge of It Knowledge was surely worth the price. (Also, I have a day off today and nothing better to do with my time.) I rang up the Syrian Ministry of Tourism because I figured it was one of the few places I'd be guaranteed to get an English speaking person. I heard one long continuous beep, followed by static, followed by short beeps, followed by short beeps that had static between them, followed by more static, followed by short beeps that were four times as loud as the previous beeps, followed by silence. Then Skype disconnected and declared the call “failed.”

I wasn't giving up on Skype so fast, though. There were two people on from Syria that had SkypeMe mode on, so I asked them about the DOIK. Saleem and Saef, however, did not respond. So it was on to the U.S. Embassy in Syria. A machine with a friendly-sounding American woman's voice picked up, informing me that they're only open from Sunday to Thursday.

Was all hope lost? It seemed so. But just then -- as I was typing this post, in fact -- Saef called me through Skype! Oh my. I answered and heard a television murmuring in the background.

"Hello?" I said.

"Hi," he said in a rather cautious tone, more like "ha-eee."

"Hi!" I said, already impressed by the exchange.

"Yes?" he said.

"Oh, well, see, someone visited my website from the Department of It Knowledge in Syria, and I didn't know what that was so --"

And then he hung up. I'm guessing it was because he didn't understand a thing I was saying -- after all, his Skype profile lists his language as Arabic -- but the adventurer in me would like to think he got scared when I mentioned the elusive DOIK, like I was asking a North Korean to dish the dirt on K-Jong Illin'.

So, what could DOIK be? This list of Syrian government ministries contains a Ministry of Information, which seems like the most reasonable choice. But amusingly -- and appropriately, really -- the Ministry of Information's website contains absolutely no information. "Our Site is under reconstruction... Please, come back soon!" it says. But, nah. I think I'm done.

Permalink: 10:25 AM | Comments (4)

Note to Johnny Hart: “Night” is a noun

And while we're at it, so is his usage of "care."

But bad grammar lessons aside, just what is Johnny Hart telling us in today's bizarre strip?

First two panels: “Alert! Alert! War on Christmas!”

Last panel: “Oh, such buffoonery! This isn’t a commentary on politics at all! You see -- oh, ha ha! -- there’s this guy, ok, and he inexplicably despises a very specific and elemental part of grammar, so his Christmas story is full of very thick, censor-like lines! Don’t you get the hijinks? We all have something like this, eh? Why, my Uncle Freddie, he hates dangling participles. Just hates ‘em!”

This is so unlike you, Johnny. We all know you’re a raving religious activist; why hide behind a punchline that doesn’t make a damn bit of sense?

Permalink: 10:03 AM | Comments (7)

The day hasn't come yet, Don

In high school and college, I was all about music. I played in bands, I wrote for music magazines, I spent a fair amount of time at shows. Once, when a band I liked was playing an 18+ show and I was only 17, I volunteered to roadie for them so I’d already be in the club when tickets were being taken. But in the last few years, I feel like I’ve passed into that realm of stagnant music appreciation I always saw in adults -- the feeling that nothing quite beats the bands you already know; that everything good has already been done before, and everything new is just off the mark.

Oh, sure, there have been a few new bands I’ve been impressed by. The Shins are delightful, some of Franz Ferdinand is wildly catchy, there’s a song by Hot Hot Heat that I can’t get out of my head and I happily discovered Ted Leo and the Pharmacists a few months ago. But I’ve noticed that I rarely take old Weakerthans CD’s out of my car stereo, I haven’t bought a new CD in months and, even though I have Sirius satellite radio and check out the modern music stations, I spend most of my time listening to NPR. What’s going on here? Am I that old already?

I think not. Instead, I think I’m just not exposed to good music the way I once was. When I went to shows and hung out with music snobs in high school and college, finding new bands was easy. Now it’s not. And quite frankly, I don’t have the energy or drive to go searching.

But today, a friend sent along a great little free tool that just might make a difference: Pandora, a free online customized music player. Just plug in a song or a band you like, and the site plays songs it believes share similar qualities. You can give it feedback -- this song’s good, that song’s bad -- and it promises to use those opinions to hone its skills.

The concept is brilliant. The execution is, well, getting there. I began by typing in “the Weakerthans,” and the station played a great Weakerthans song. After that, it played a band called SouthFM, which was so-so, followed by something by a guy named Jason Lowenstein, which I didn’t like at all. Then came “Tonight You Could Steal Me Away,” a song off the new Spin Doctors album, which I’m not ashamed to say I enjoyed a lot. I’ve been listening for about 20 minutes now (and continue to as I write this post), and I haven’t found any new favorite bands yet. Also, I get the sense that the program doesn’t quite understand the Weakerthans, and isn’t really playing songs that share the same qualities. However, the music isn’t terrible and Spin Doctors were the only group I had even heard of, so I consider that a victory.

And if I want a change of pace, all I have to do is stray from the Weakerthans. It's a big leap, but this time I think I can handle it.

Permalink: 12:06 PM | Comments (4)

Tiny mummy, large cheese balls

A winning combination, I say. This was taken at a holiday party over the weekend by my friend Rob.

Permalink: 01:57 PM | Comments (1)

Adventures in cake-buying: a one-act play

Scene: Two days ago at a coffee shop/bakery down the street from me. Morning. The front counter has two cash registers. On the right, I'm buying a cake to bring to a party that night. On the left, a black woman has just ordered a coffee.

Woman: Sometimes, you know, I just like to have a little fun with people.

Cashier: Oh?

Woman: The other day, I was in a coffee shop and a man in front of me ordered ‘a black to go.’ So I jumped into his arms and said, 'Let's go!'

Permalink: 08:43 AM | Comments (0)

And it turned into a ballroom blitz

Say what you will about Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, but this photo from today's Boston Globe shows he's no Heisman Trophy winner. (Caption: "Mayor Thomas M. Menino threw around a football with children before a press conference at the Boys & Girls Club of Boston in Dorchester.") But considering the little girl bustin' a move behind him, I wonder how Menino would look in a different setting...

Go Tommy, it's your birthday! We're gonna party like it's your birthday!

Permalink: 12:51 PM | Comments (0)

If you love it so much, why don't you merry it?

The closest I'll get to Christmas: Santa and one of his delightful helpers came over for a picture at the Boston Weekly Dig holiday party this week.

After watching this crazy argument on CNN over the so-called "War on Christmas," I had an idea: Wouldn't it be funny if I called up some of these Christian groups and somehow tricked them into admitting that the whole charade is anti-Semitic, and then posted a recording of the conversation on this blog? I do think the whole thing is at least somewhat anti-Jew -- well, so far as it's also anti-Muslim and anti-atheist and anti-diversity in general. Then I realized the big problem here: In Massachusetts, it's illegal to secretly tape a conversation. Damn. And then I realized something else: Hey, wait a second, why am I getting all defensive about Judaism? I can't even tell you when Rosh Hashanah is.

Luckily, some dude in yesterday's New York Times knows how I feel and put it into words perfectly. In a piece about non-observant Jews getting all hip and festive for Hanukkah, he explained the attraction:

"We have 12 months of the year to assert our Jewish identity, so why now?" said Rob Tannenbaum, one half of the variety show "What I Like About Jew." "The time of year that I feel most like a minority group is Christmas."

Mr. Tannenbaum said he tries to convey his feelings to his Christian friends by asking them to imagine this: "Everywhere you go strangers say to you, 'Merry Ramadan.' Anywhere you go you can't get into a store because people are bowing to Mecca. You'd be an angry minority. You'd be like, 'Enough of this Ramadan all ready.' "

This is so hilariously true that I audibly gasped when I read it. I've made the same argument to my friends, but the earlier bit about feeling like a minority group is what really struck me. Christmas always irked me because it's so inescapable, but I once tolerated it somewhat well. Now that Fox News has turned Christmas into some sort of political cause, though, I feel damn near oppressed.

I recently watched a Target ad that said "Merry Christmas" at the end -- something that I probably wouldn't have taken any note of in years past, but this year I know Target specifically put those words in their ads to appease conservative groups. Now when I see it, I've got a message coming into my living room that says, "You're irrelevant to us." That's not what "Merry Christmas" means, but it's sure what the new, Fox-fortified "Merry Christmas" means. Divide and conquer: That's the station's method, according to a former producer. And yeah, I sure do feel divided away. It's enough to make me want to celebrate Hanukkah.

Well, almost enough.

Permalink: 08:15 AM | Comments (6)

And next month, it's HappyScrappy 401(k) plans

Well, here’s one of the more amusing pieces of junk mail I’ve ever received. “Congratulations!” it later reads. “You’ve been invited to carry the best card available for your business.” I’ve been invited, eh? Whoever decided to reach out to the sprawling HappyScrappy staff here sure did their homework. It's been a long time coming. Screw this low-budget blogging, I say! Tomorrow, baby, we’re going to get this place fixed up nice and charge it to First Equity. Bye bye cheap jokes, hello expensive lousy jokes!

Permalink: 12:04 AM | Comments (0)

Buy me some matzoh and crackerjacks, I don’t care if I ever go back...

I’m such a fraud. In my latest profile for Boston’s Weekly Dig, I wrote about a guy who puts out baseball cards featuring only Jews, and the lede references Adam Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song.” Meanwhile, I don’t know jack about baseball, I’ve all but turned my back on my Jewish upbringing and I absolutely can’t stand Sandler’s song. But hey, the baseball card guy -- Martin Abramowitz, pictured above -- was really nice and interesting, and I think I faked my way through this one pretty well.

Abramowitz’s second set of cards is being released this winter. Hey Bill O’Reilly, does releasing something Jewish-themed around this time qualify as part of the War on Christmas?

As I did last time, let me shamelessly use this space to solicit ideas from anyone who knows of someone worth profiling in greater Boston. If you've got someone in mind, please e-mail me. (My dad, in fact, was the one who suggested Abramowitz. He saw him written about on some Jewish website.)

Permalink: 12:42 PM | Comments (0)

Well, birds do tend to get away when the cages don't have bottoms

At the writer’s meeting for today’s Heathcliff:

Writer 1: “Ok, ok! I’ve got it! Heathcliff is coming out of an exotic bird store, right? And he’s in handcuffs, and there’s a one-legged policeman behind him.”

Writer 2: “I love it! Why’s he being arrested?”

Writer 1: “See, as he’s walking out, he’s burping... and feathers are flying out of his mouth!”

Writer 2: “Nice touch, nice touch. But why’s he being arrested?”

Writer 1: “What do you mean?”

Writer 2: “If he’s being arrested, it means he did something wrong in the exotic bird store. So, what is it?”

Writer 1: “Dude, I just told you. He’s burping and feathers are coming out of--”

Writer 2: “Oh, I’ve got it! He sexually assaults the saleslady. That’s funny, right? A cat sexually assaulting a saleslady? And the punchline can be, like, Heathcliff saying, ‘She was asking for it.’”

Writer 1: “What!? No, no. Listen. He’s burping and feathers are coming out of his mouth because he ate some of the birds. That’s why he’s being arrested.”

Writer 2: “Oh! Well, who the hell is supposed to understand that? We’ll have to put a little boy over in the corner to explain it. He’ll say something like, ‘Exotic birds make him gassy.’ Then people will get it.”

Writer 1: “Ugh. Fine.”

Writer 2: “But I still think it would be funnier if he sexually assaulted her.”

Permalink: 08:12 AM | Comments (0)

Table scraps:

♣LIFE AS A simple fish, in comic form. (This one is my favorite.)

♣HERE'S TO THE bravery of Francis Heaney, who has put his humor book, "Holy Tango of Literature," on the web for free. We who balance two loves -- the love of free content, and the love of getting paid to write -- salute you, Francis.

♣I'VE ALREADY ADMITTED to being embarassed to buy a book after seeing a movie, and another blogger has graciously backed me up on it (and added another level of sorrow -- that of not wanting to buy a book with a movie-inspired cover, which I very much agree with). So, if we and people like us happen to see "Brokeback Mountain" and love it, we can take at least this bit of respite: The New Yorker has put the original story up on its site.

♣I'M SURE THIS is old news to the hippest cell phone users, but did you it's really easy to e-mail people's cell phones? All you need to know is their number, their service and the right e-mail address (see chart).

♣LONG, THICK PENISES were considered -- at least in the highbrow view -- grotesque, comic, or both and were usually found on fertility gods, half-animal critters such as satyrs, ugly old men, and barbarians. My, how things change. Here's everything you didn't want to know about what ancient Greeks thought about penises.

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this.

Permalink: 08:12 AM | Comments (2)

RWC – Righting Wrong Claims

Because we here at HappyScrappy are committed to correcting mistakes, there’s a small matter I’d like to clear up. Last night, I went with some friends to see Syriana, which was very well done and worth the price of admission. However, after coughing up that exorbitant price -- $9.75, in fact -- we looked at the ticket and noticed something interesting: It said “SYRIANA RWC.”

As you might recall, I put up a post in October ridiculing the theater for writing “WALLACE-RWC” on the ticket to “Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit.” At the time, I had been sure the theater screwed up and reversed the initials of the movie’s subtitle. But now here was Syriana RWC, and surely, we thought, there were no were-rabbits in this film. (A correct assumption.)

So we asked the woman who was taking tickets, and she said it stood for “Rear-View Window.” We pondered that for a moment and, realizing it didn’t make any sense, pushed for more information. She had little to give. “It stands for ‘Move Along Please, You’re Holding Up The Line,’” a friend later joked.

Finally, a manager enlightened us: RWC is Rear-Window Captioning, a system that helps hearing-impaired people enjoy the movie better, and its presence on the ticket means that the specific room we’ll be in is RWC-capable.

There. Aren’t we all a little more educated because of this experience? I’d like to think so.

Permalink: 10:42 AM | Comments (0)

There go my plans of posting full-frontal shots of myself on MySpace

And here we thought MySpace was just filled with, as the Sun-Sentinel wrote, big-breasted women and profanity. Turns out, it's also filled with, uh, shirtless men who love big-breasted women and profanity. Jokes on you, Sun-Sentinel! Observe:

My friend Lilli is on MySpace, and like probably every girl on any of these Friendster/MySpace services, she frequently gets contacted by random sketchy guys. Last night was no exception. The man of the hour, whose name I'll change to Jim because he looks like he could beat me up, had a few strikes against him: His primary photo was shot from behind -- flexing a shirtless torso showing off the kind of muscles that baseball officials might be suspicious of; his friends are all female, and their pictures are all boobalicious; and perhaps most harrowing of all, his name happens to be that of a particularly lousy ex-boyfriend of Lilli's.

Most girls I know simply ignore these guys, and that's surely the best way to handle it. But last night, all of this made Lilli a little saucy and so she decided to confront him. Their grammar-free exchange, which quickly devolves into insult-by-psycho-analysis, is after the jump:

Permalink: 11:16 AM | Comments (0)

If this post were on TV, it'd be titled "TV news blues"

We were watching a local news show last night, which is something I only do on an empty stomach. A reporter began introducing a story by saying that a fraudulent mall Santa entered the building “but didn’t drop off presents.”

“...because he dropped his pants!” I said. Sure enough, five seconds later, the reporter says the guy dressed as Santa ran into a bunch of stores and dropped his pants.

“How did you know that?” my girlfriend asked.

“It was obvious,” I said. “No mall Santa drops off presents. The only reason the reporter said it was because it was a line-up for a joke about dropping something, and pants makes the most sense.”

Local news shows have much to contend with, and I recognize there’s little the reporters can do to fix it. These operations are understaffed, underfunded and run by people who make news judgments based on what might make the best ratings, which inevitably means more audacious police and celebrity stories and less actual news. But here’s something reporters can do: stop trying to be clever, because it too often results in tortured wordplay.

It gets even worse when the wittiness is so mangled that a reporter then has to explain it to the reader, like this intro to a story about a weird holiday decoration: “In one South Florida community, a man's holiday decorations are causing holiday fear for local children instead of creating holiday cheer.” Listen up, reporter: If you’re afraid the phrase “holiday fear” won’t be understood without pairing it with “holiday cheer,” leave it out entirely. Otherwise, it sounds like you think we’re idiots.

Actually, TV news narration doesn’t even need to attempt cleverness in order to treat viewers like dolts. On the ABC Primetime show about Prussian Blue, a musical hate duo featuring young blond twins, a segment showed a picture of the girls wearing shirts with a happy face and a very, very obvious Hitler moustache. Here was the narration that went along with it: "April Gaede misses no opportunity for her blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls to talk about race, even on their clothes. The girls' smiley-faced t-shirt has a message. [pause] Look closely at the face. [pause] It's not just a smiley face. [pause] It's Adolf Hitler's face."

Well, duh.

Permalink: 02:35 PM | Comments (1)

Table scraps:

♣THOSE PANTS SURE give a new meaning to "Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" In any case, it's now official: Japanese thug fashion is off the hizzy. (via LYD)

♣THIS IS LIKE saying that Dickens wrote, "It was the best of times": Here's a correction from the London Observer: Our interview with American literary sensation Benjamin Kunkel (Review, last week) was accompanied by a panel of quotes from US reviews, supplied by his publisher. One, from Entertainment Weekly, read: 'Kunkel has succeeded in crafting a voice of singular originality' and omitted the next line ' - one you want to punch in the mouth.'

♣WHAT'S MORE FUN than watching a parking lot in Alaska? I don't know, but if you actually watch the lot, I'm sure you can think of something.

♣AS CLOSE READERS of this site know, I have a significant dislike of the comic strip B.C. So, if for nothing else, I'd like to point out that an article in the New York Times called B.C. "dull crypto-evangelism." Hah! Although, did anyone catch what must have been an unhappy coincidence for Johnny Hart yesterday? This strip about corrupt politicians just happened to run on the same day a judge upheld money-laundering charges against Tom DeLay. So much for the party line.

♣METAL OR JOKE? I'm not sure, but the video on the front page of this band's site is something to behold.

♣I RECENTLY GOT hooked on a game called Bubblefish Bob. It's a simple game, really, and not that much different from countless other group-things-of-similar-colors games. But you see, in this one, your groupings help save little fish. And I think -- as sad as this is to admit -- that I played far more than I should have simply because it was somewhat rewarding to think I was saving little fishies. Go play. Go save some fishies. You'll feel better.

♣GREAT MOMENTS IN bad customer service: Insane online camera retailer gets what's coming to it, and a Blockbuster employee puts a little too much on the receipt. (First via NM, second via RMO.)

Permalink: 08:00 AM | Comments (1)

Come for the cookies, stay for the rhetoric

Out of curiosity, I went to a “town meeting” hosted by Massachusetts Congressman Marty Meehan this weekend. It was billed as a discussion about Iraq and I thought, considering Sen. Murtha’s comments and the apparently turning tide of public opinion, it’d be interesting to see who comes out to this and how Meehan portrays the Democrats' message. Also, there was a nice spread of cookies that I indulged in before and after the event.

Turns out the cookies were the most rewarding part of the day. During the meeting, Meehan articulated nothing. He spent most of his time answering questions by rephrasing their premises, which for some reason seemed to satisfy the crowd. For example, a man identified himself as a pastor and asked what sort of moral obligation we have to the Iraqis; in response, Meehan spent about five minutes saying, “I believe we have a moral obligation to the Iraqis.” The guy nodded and thanked him, but I wished he would have said, “Yeah, I already said that. I asked what the moral obligation is.” But, no such luck.

The most amusing moment came as a double feature. Early in the meeting, a curmudgeonly guy in the back of the room asked, “What should be done about Joe Lieberman? Should he be excommunicated, or just simply ignored?”

“Simply ignored,” Meehan said. The crowd laughed.

Half an hour later, a woman on the other side of the room said she finds it hypocritical that Meehan would say he wants to hold a dialog with all sides (which he did) but believes Lieberman should be blown off. “I didn’t say I’m blowing him off,” Meehan said. “It was an A-or-B question.”

So busted.

Permalink: 09:04 AM | Comments (1)

The new phone: Reach out and use someone

As I noted a little while ago, I signed up for Skype. It's been a really useful service, especially when I was able to make two-cent calls to Australia for that Kansas City Star piece, but I just recently discovered a whole new realm of enjoyment on the service: Acting as the token American to the world.

By setting Skype to a mode called SkypeMe, I invite anyone on the service to contact me. It's kind of like if AIM had an option that announced to everyone, "Hey, I'm bored and available!" And sure enough, they come calling: At least once every 10 or 20 minutes, some totally random person from some totally random part of the world will call me, and my computer will start ringing. I've never answered a call, but sometimes they'll then IM me (also a service in Skype), and I occasionally respond in there. These people are never American, and for some reason, they're frequently Chinese girls. I can't explain that.

Most of the people seem to just want to reach out and touch America, and I find that kind of charming. It's also reassuring, considering all the bad vibes America gets nowadays. These people are just curious about America, and often want to practice their English. If I've got the time, I'm happy to oblige. Wednesday night, for example, a kid from Holland who used way!!!! too!!!! many!!! exclamation points!!!! when talking about how much of "the bomb" America is!!!! was more than thrilled to talk with me, just because I'm in America. And yesterday afternoon, when I got a message from Abdel in Morocco, I expected something similar. But things quickly devolved.

It started like many others do. He asks what languages I speak about about my profession, then apologizes for his English (which is always amusing to me, because these people know English far, far better than I know their languages). But soon he starts asking about Americans' level of kindness, and if I'd be willing to help him. I smelled trouble, but was curious enough to let him go on. Sure enough, he wants out of Morocco -- and he wants me to find him a wife to do it. It's funny, really, because I've got all these women who keep asking me to find them Moroccan husbands, and I never knew what to do with them! What a relief this is!

No, really. I tell him that's beyond my control, and then he delivers the best line of the day: "if possible to talk to your girl freind"

Whoa man! Just imagine that conversation: "Honey, we've been together for a while now, so I hope you don't mind marrying this guy Abdel from Morocco. I met him on Skype yesterday, and he seems like he'll make a great husband. And hey, seriously, I'll come by every few days to say hi." Ten seconds later, perhaps noting my silence, Abdel explains that maybe she knows some women who, you know, are just dying to marry a random Moroccan guy. And don't worry, he says, they can get divorced. It's just a formality, anyway. No biggie.

It's sad to see the desperation this guy has to get out of his country, and I don't blame him for trying. But now I'm beginning to wonder: Are these people contacting me through Skype because they want contact with America, or because they think they can use me to get to America? I'm starting to feel like a drunk sorority girl in an international frat house.

If you're curious, the full conversation with Abdel ("waelpaix1") is after the jump.

Permalink: 11:57 AM | Comments (1)

Death by numbers

Illustrated: Odds of dying by accidental injury in a lifetime

Just look around you. See those 2,503,837 people? Well, within a year, one of them will die when they get caught between two objects. And hey, did you know that one person out of 7,198,531 dies every year by contact with hot tap water? Or that one person out of 180,188 dies every year by falling down stairs? So much tragedy, so many ways to get killed -- it's as if nobody can escape death, you know?

While doing some research yesterday, I stumbled upon these numbers and more from the National Safety Council. In response to frequent media requests for stats on the chances of dying from certain things, they put together a great chart listing all sorts of causes of death and then the odds of dying from them in a year and in a lifetime.

Intrigued, I decided to make some practical application of this. I randomly yanked stories about death from Google news, and matched them up with the chart. Here are the four I chose:

1. Boy tries jumping from one roof to another, misses and dies. Chances of death by falling, jumping, pushed from high places during a lifetime: 1 in 36,165.

2. Brothers-in-law die in a plane crash. Chances of dying while in air or space transit during a lifetime: 1 in 5,704

3. Police officer dies in his home because of carbon monoxide poisioning. Chances of dying by accidental poisoning by exposure to noxious substances during a lifetime: 1 in 212

4. Judge develops cancer and goes in for a biopsy, but the anesthesia stopped her heart and she died. Chances of dying from complications of medical and surgical care during a lifetime: 1 in 1,310

It's sort of freaky, isn't it? I mean, I don't know 36,165 people, so there's a good chance I'll never know anyone who died because of falling, jumping or being pushed from high places. But a 1 in 212 chance of dying from accidental poisioning? I'm sure I know 212 people. Damn, it better not be me.

The numbers are a little more comforting when you look at the odds of dying in a year, not in a lifetime. That 212 number shoots up to 16,407; 36,165 goes to 2,795,546. So hey, at least we all have a good shot at making it to New Years. And next year, why, the odds are just as good.

Permalink: 10:59 AM | Comments (3)